Her Loud Companion
by Flying Penguinz
Summary: Not even Mary Poppins can get anything past her intuitive parrot umbrella handle. She and the parrot reflect on how practically perfect people CAN permit sentiment to muddle their thinking.


"You can't fool me, Mary Poppins," the parrot umbrella handle said. "I know exactly how you feel about those children and if you think I'm going to keep my mouth shut any longer I—"

Mary Poppins clamped the bird's wooden beak together with her thumb and forefinger gently. "That'll be quite enough, thank you," she said. Mary Poppins could put children in line and adults in their place, but she couldn't show this bird how rude it was to interject when no one wanted it to no matter how many times she'd told it so. She knew just how she felt without an umbrella handle telling her so.

She opened her umbrella and got a firm grip on her carpetbag and ascended into the sky on the wind. Below her, Michael and Jane were off flying their kite with Mr. and Mrs. Banks just as she had left them. Mary Poppins wondered what the children would do when they returned home and found she really had meant that she was leaving for good, because she knew in some part of their lovely hearts they believed she would be sitting in the nursery and humming, awaiting their arrival.

But Mary Poppins was not in the nursery and humming. She was in the sky, her eyes trained on a nice looking cloud not too far away. It would make a good place to stay until she heard another call of a child in need of a nanny.

"Don't get too sad, Mary Poppins," the bird handle said suddenly, causing her heart to skip a beat and her graceful floating to jolt for an instant.

"I most certainly am not sad. Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking," she said sternly. "And I _told_ you to be quiet."

"Oh, let's talk about it," said the parrot. Mary Poppins ignored her opinionated bird handle.

She landed gracefully on a cloud and set down her bag. "Yes, this will do quite nicely." She closed her umbrella with protests from the handle that quieted quickly. Mary Poppins reached into her magic bag and pulled out a small table. She set it down and brushed flecks of dirt off the surface.

After a moment of silence so she could regroup and face the conversation at hand, sighing, Mary Poppins reached for the umbrella she'd discarded and opened it once again. The mouth on the parrot began moving immediately.

"_Mary Poppins_, I've told you to _please_ not do that while I'm talking. It gets awfully stuffy in there." There was a silence with the occasional clinking of china as Mary Poppins pulled out a teapot, a cup, and a saucer from the carpetbag. "Are you even listening to me?"

Mary Poppins took a delicate sip of the tea she'd just poured for herself. "Of course I am, I always listen," she said matter-of-factly and not rudely in any way.

"Well then, you listen to this," the handle said in a hear-me-now sort of tone. "You miss those children already and I'm not going to sit around and listen to you reminisce about things that happened not just a few hours ago. I know why it is you mope around for days after a job: closure, that's it. You never say goodbye," the bird concluded smugly.

Mary Poppins gave the thing a hard look and put her cup on the table softly. She put her elbow on the table and sat her chin upon her hand, raising a brow at the parrot. "I've said goodbye many times, so you're quite wrong."

"No, no," it said. "You never tell them how much you care. I hear everything when you leave the children, Miss Mary Poppins, so don't try to tell me that you've ever admitted anything as grand as your _feelings_." The bird paused and Mary Poppins did not reply. "Not even to Bert," it said, filling the silence with tension.

"Now," said Mary Poppins as she crossed her legs tightly, "Bert has no need to be bothered with something as trivial as my feelings, even _if_ I troubled myself with having to deal with them. As I told you before, I am above trifling with sentiments."

"Say what you please," said the bird, not at all convinced at Mary Poppins's grand show. "But _I'll_ always know better." The parrot handle scoffed, adding under its breath, "'Trifling with.'"

Mary Poppins set down her tea and gave the wood creature a thin-lipped look that wasn't quite a glare, but the meaning was clear. The bird quieted.

Mary Poppins sighed, reached over, and closed the umbrella. She sat back in her chair, thinking of the children and Bert and how though she says goodbye, she never allows herself to let go of them in her heart—just as her audacious little parrot had said.

"Troublesome sentiments, indeed."


End file.
